Chapter Forty The Edges of This World
CHAPTER FORTY
THE EDGES OF THIS WORLD
Death was warmer than she thought it would be.
Light shimmered beyond her closed eyelids.
Light, not darkness. Reya felt her lips curve into a smile, arms swinging beneath her as though on a breeze.
She had not been sentenced to the Void after all.
Soon she would see her parents again, would meet them with pride and not shame.
She opened her eyes, expecting to see Atyx carrying her to the stars on black feathered wings.
Instead, she saw Caelan’s profile silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky. Felt his arms around her. Panic sent her heart into a canter. He could not be here with her. That would mean he…
Cradled against his chest, Reya’s body shifted with every step he took. She must have moved a little, because Caelan turned his face down to hers, his agonized expression twisting into one of relief.
The air no longer smelled of death, but of grass and earth and crisp mountain air—of life.
She was alive.
When she spoke, her voice was a husk of its former self. “Caelan.”
“I’ve got you.”
He laid her down gently on soft grass, but didn’t let go. Her eyes bulged. It was as though every one of her nerve endings was on fire.
“I know.” Caelan’s voice was tight. “It will hurt for a while. All that power knocked you out. You got lucky, thief.”
“How long was I—”
“Four hours, twenty-eight minutes, and three seconds.”
Their eyes locked.
Reya reached for that cavern inside her, feeling for what remained, and was met with a hollow dam. She’d expected to feel at peace in the emptiness, but instead she felt raw and exposed.
When she swallowed, it tasted like blood. “It was worth the risk.”
The anguish in Caelan’s words wiped away thoughts of everything else. “You cannot do that again.”
Reya’s smile was soft. “It’s unwise to give me orders. You know how I love to ignore them.”
“My answer is yes.”
“Yes?”
His hands tightened around her. “Yes to all of it. To after. To now. To eternity.”
Tears welled until they slid past her ears, and he ran his calloused thumbs through them, smearing away the blood and dirt.
“You want to know my first thought after I drank that poison? That I would die without ever getting to tell you that.” He pressed her palm flat against his bare chest, right over the scar on his heart. “I would follow you to the edges of this world and further, Reyanwyn of the Mountain.”
A sob escaped her throat, and Caelan lowered his mouth to hers, consuming the sound.
It was soft, like he feared he might break her.
But when she laid her hands on either side of his face, it became searching.
She opened for him, and he muted her whimpers with his tongue.
Caelan slid one hand around to cup the back of her head, fingers tightening around the tangles in her hair as he laid her flat.
But there was movement around them, and it banked the fire that had always raged between them. He pulled back just enough to murmur against her lips, “Later.” The word rang with promise.
“She’s awake!” someone called out.
Reya flushed, and Caelan helped her into a sitting position. She swallowed her cry at the pain of the movement. It felt like she’d run for days and twisted every joint out of place. Then Omira and Thance were standing before them.
“You’re alive,” Omira said, breathless.
“If I’m not and you’re all here, that means something went very wrong,” Reya groaned.
Thance grinned. “Guardian indeed. That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”
With one arm around Reya’s waist, Caelan lifted her to her feet.
“Where are we?”
“We’re almost to the Cleary,” he said.
She glanced around. A field of wildflowers was all that remained between them and the familiar line of trees. The Etellinian Mountains were a snow-capped wall at their backs. It was hard to believe they had been in those peaks that morning.
“The soldiers?” she asked.
“Only their Kellstone weapons remain,” Caelan said, never taking his eyes off her face.
An entire legion of men and their mounts—wiped from existence.
No bodies or even bones to bury. Their families might never know what truly happened to them.
Would never find the closure of identifying the bodies and laying them to rest. Reya knew all too well what it was like to grieve someone you couldn’t burn or bury.
The idea that she might have caused some other little girl the same grief had her tasting copper.
Some of those men might not have even wanted to be there, might have simply been following orders.
Had Reya even left their souls for Atyx?
“The horses,” she choked out, tears welling in her eyes.
Caelan, who seemed to have been bracing for this realization, looked like he wanted to carve open his own chest so he could put her pain inside it.
Her nausea won out, and she keeled over.
Caelan reached for her hair as she spilled her stomach contents onto the flowers.
She thought of Ash, of what might have happened if he’d been there.
And what of her brother? What if Leo had been in that legion?
“I know,” Caelan said solemnly, shielding her from view.
“I killed them all.” The words were low and strangled—like they tasted foul, like speaking too loudly would make it somehow more real.
“And you saved us. Both things can be true.”
What she had unleashed on that field, what she had seen inside the Rage… no one should have that sort of power. No one on this earth.
“If it hadn’t been by your hand, it would have been by mine,” Caelan said, sensing the direction of her thoughts. “And I’m a far slower, more painful death. We would have had to fight them hand-to-hand, and many of us would have died.”
“He’s right, Reya,” Thance said gently, but not weakly.
“More will come,” she panted.
Caelan’s expression didn’t falter. “Yes.”
Simple. True. One word full of promise and doom.
But it would take time for Rhiterra to gather its forces, and they would not attack without assessing the new threat. Then there was the Cleary. It was a massive area to search, and with Drelids to cloak them, it might be enough. She’d bought them all time; she just didn’t know how much.
Reya felt the eyes on her, heard the sudden, hushed silence where voices had been a moment before.
Caelan laid a hand on her lower back as she wiped her mouth on her forearm, keeping her in front of him and moving her away from the bile.
Omira passed Caelan a waterskin, and he tipped it to Reya’s lips.
She drank deeply, slowing when she remembered it might be a time before they could resupply.
The crowd came to a halt several paces away from them, some pushing to the front to see. Citrio was at its head, Blue at his side. They gathered around Reya, Caelan, Thance, and Omira in a half circle, but every eye was trained on her.
She didn’t know what to do with her hands. Sensing this, Caelan took one in his and squeezed tight. The silence stretched too long. Then, in a wave, the crowd of magic-born dropped to its knees.
Her breath left her in a rush, and she had to look down. Which was a mistake. She saw what was left of her once-white shift, the torn hem wet with mud and the bodice splattered with red and blue blood. She looked like a murderer.
You are a murderer.
Blue was the first to rise. Chin high, she plucked a single bloom from the field of wildflowers.
Reya watched in wonder as the bloom began to bend and grow, until more sprouted from the stem.
Vines twined together in a crown bursting with white, lilac, and blue flowers.
She extended it to Reya with a dip of her chin.
It seemed rude to refuse, so she accepted it with a forced smile.
“Thank you,” Reya said, the words like sand.
“My name is Igraine,” she said, blue hair fluttering around her shimmering cheekbones. Her accent was lilting and lovely, but she seemed out of practice speaking the common language. “My sisters and I would offer you our gratitude for what you have done.”
What did one say to that? You’re welcome? Go and be at peace? It was nothing?
More Drelids followed Igraine’s lead, stepping forward with sticks and flowers and clumps of dirt. They crafted her an ash wood scepter, a cape of purple and blue wildflowers, a tiny mural of twigs and grass that depicted Reya facing down the Rhiterrans on the banks of the Sirene.
“It is an honor to receive a gift from a Drelid,” Caelan explained softly. “To carry one is to claim safe passage through their domain.”
The ground suddenly shook. They all tensed as a Cogor rose from where he knelt.
The crowd yelped and parted for the stone giant who wore tree moss and kudzu like armor, and did not seem concerned about who he might trample.
He was nearly twice Caelan’s height, with a humanoid face and skin made of smooth gray rock that scraped as he shifted.
His eyes were a moody gray sky that never left Reya’s face.
She gulped.
“I can translate,” Thance offered, suddenly at her side. “Cogors don’t speak. At least not in any language we can understand. But his thoughts, I can read. His name is Bog. He says thank you. And he humbly requests that you allow him to go from this place to seek out his family.”
Reya nearly choked. “Of course he can. He needn’t ask.” She added a little louder for the crowd, “No one need ask.”
Caelan chuckled lightly, and she glared at him.
Bog grunted, bowed his head, and headed north, ground shuddering beneath him.
“I’m not keeping anyone here,” she whispered.
“He knows that,” Thance said. “He wished to say thank you. They all do.”
The rest came forward, and she wanted to sprint hard and fast away from the attention. The Sages approached, their smiles exhausted but full of hope.
“I knew you were special, Red,” Citrio said in that same bedroom-smooth tenor. “Just not that special.”
“You too,” she said, wishing she’d been awake to see it. “Thank you.”